Guest column: The case for academic freedom on evolution and in science class

Nov. 28, 2012

Written by

Joshua Youngkin

For the Journal & Courier

You can safely bet on this. If, as seems likely, a bill is proposed in the Indiana legislature next year that would allow public school students to hear both sides of the evolution debate, critics will distort the content of the law and the reasoning behind it.

You’ll hear that Discovery Institute, the education policy think tank where I’m a staff attorney, and its local allies seek to introduce “creationism” and “religion” in the science classroom. You will hear that this would cripple science education in the state — if it weren’t for the certainty that the law, if passed, would be struck down as unconstitutional.

I know you’ll hear these things because that is always what opponents of academic freedom say when the issue comes before state lawmakers.

What’s the truth? Discovery and innovation, in scientific and other fields, depend on academic freedom. That is why at Purdue University, for one example, the staff handbook promises professors “freedom of scientific inquiry” to “acquaint their students with the various sides of controversial subjects within their fields of subject-matter competency.”

The need for critical thinking and discernment in science, however, does not begin at the university level. At the latest it begins when students are first exposed to scientific controversies, in high school biology class. That is why Discovery Institute recommends to reform-minded school districts and lawmakers an academic freedom policy for responsible, limited use in the high school setting.

Such a policy, protecting teachers who introduce cutting-edge science — not religion — in their teaching, may come up for a vote by Indiana lawmakers in 2013. If the law passes, Indiana would join other states that have taken legislative action to guarantee academic freedom in public schools.

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In 2008, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal signed into law a bill based on Discovery Institute’s model academic freedom bill. In 2012, Tennessee likewise enacted a law based on Discovery Institute’s model bill. Would academic freedom be good for Hoosier teachers and students? This, in part, is what the Journal & Courier’s Dave Bangert wanted to know recently when he called me on the phone.

In his subsequent article on Mike Pence’s legislative priorities, Bangert worried that an academic freedom bill would be a “culture war distraction” to the governor-elect who promised during his campaign to grow private sector employment, attract investment to critical industries, cut state income taxes and further education reform. Bangert wrung his hands over claims that teaching the scientific controversy over Darwinian evolution is a way to inject religion into science class.

What, again, is the truth? Discovery Institute’s academic freedom bill, and the state laws that it has inspired, do not authorize a departure from science into nonscience, religious or otherwise. To make that perfectly clear, Tennessee’s academic freedom law reads, in part, that the law “only protects the teaching of scientific information, and shall not be construed to promote any religious or non-religious doctrine.”

So if a Tennessee teacher teaches biblical creationism in science class, Tennessee’s law would provide no shelter against a legal challenge. That’s why laws based on Discovery Institute’s model bill have generated no successful legal challenge, nor will they.

Responsible academic freedom bills are about fostering critical inquiry in those public institutions of learning that most require it, for the good of students and their future careers. And that’s something all Hoosiers can get behind.

Youngkin is a program officer in public policy and legal affairs at the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, based in Seattle.